at 8:30, senator ron johnson. follman of5, mark "mother jones" announced a leaders two-year budget deal that will keep federal agencies up and running. good morning, everyone on this wednesday, december 11, 2013. paul ryan and patty murphy said that this deal means that the government stops lurching from one crisis to the next. what do you think this morning? post your comments on

cspan.ok.com/ first, jeremy herb with "the hill was quoted joining us on the phone. what did they get out of this? what did the two sides agree to? some 63 billion dollars in sequester savings over the next two years. have for defense and half for discretionary. the numbers right in between where the house and the senate each wanted. they picked a number right between the two. >> when it comes to sequester, the automatic spending cuts that were agreed to under the budget control act of 2011, how do they

deal with it? $63 billion is restored. what does that mean? there are still some sequestration that happens. how much and when? back somey will give of the sequester cuts, but still not all the way there. the pentagon, for instance, they will reduce sequester by $22 billion next year. that would have meant that the budget level that they are at this year would have been cut by an additional $22 billion. is still $30 billion lower than the budget proposed by the pentagon and by the house and at the pre-sequester spending level. so they will stop to find out how to lower spending under sequester. this will allow them to really avoid a lot of the pain in terms of types of readiness and cuts to military programs at a said would be coming in 2014 without kind of -- without some kind of

deal. host: why did they go for two years? >> we have gone from crisis to crisis, all of these 11th hour deals. id if he goes through come think we really will see that go away for the next year or two. there are still some issues i will have to be dealt with. this does not address the debt ceiling, for instance. that is coming up in the spring, even if we do get this budget to past. wery october, and set of -- are always getting through cr and, if this cup pass, for the first time in a while, we would not have to worry about that, over. -- about that come october. we hear from military letters -- military zalicus from the hell. the crisis to crisis governing. host: what is not in this deal?

guest: a few things. the debt ceiling is one of them. to getts had also wanted an extension on unemployment insurance into the bill, but that is also something that patty murray and paul ryan decided not to touch. it is a very modest deal. it is not the grand bargain that -- long been thought been sought. but they tried to get some agreement. they didn't really tackle entitlements. they did not tackle revenues. what they did at least find a way to come to agreement on something, osha had not been able to do before. $63 billion in sequester cuts, the automatic spending cuts are restored, and the deal prevents government shutdown through october 2015. no unemployment that if it's extended, the long-term unemployment benefits. the deficit cut by $22 billion over a decade. how did they do that? guest: they found a way to cut

$85 billion over the next two years. they did that in a few ways. they are making federal workers in the military pay more into their pensions. $6 billion in savings that way. they also used budget tricks to extend the two percent sequester cut for medicare spending. that is another two years. so that now last two 2023 instead of 2021. there will also be higher airline fees now as a result of this this deal goes through -- as a result if this deal goes through. host: why did they do that? they had to look under every renny to find a way to get money, to basically get stuff that both sides would agree to without tackling does big things. that is not the easiest task.

airline fees, obviously not everyone's happy with that. i'm sure travelers are now, that is now appealing to hear. but it is a way for them to get money. paul ryan can now go to his want toce, who does not increase spending who says that it's ok because this deal byuces the deficit as well $23 billion. so you will hear paul ryan saying that a lot in the next few weeks. host: what happens next? ryan is the budget chairman. is very well-liked by republicans. we will get the first sense over whether republicans will get -- we'll go along with us. we will get statements of support from speaker boehner and leader cantor. the house wants to vote on it this week to get it done. we conceived probably friday or maybe thursday. on the democratic side, too,

this is not something they are excited about. because of the unemployment insurance, because of the making federal workers taymor who have already been hit by sequester and the budget top democrat on the budget committee, there will be a lot of lobbying. tea party groups will come out against it. arco rubio potentially, it comment -- an opponent of paul rubio, an host: opponent of paul ryan. we are learning that the house rules committee will take this later today to get it on the senateloor with the voting on an next week. you mentioned the tea party folks. congressmaneet file tim hills

host: what do you make of that? guest: this shows that it will not be an easy sell despite ryan's pledge that this cuts the deficit. conservative tea party republicans like the sequester. for the first time in a long while, they have fought government spending. this deal raises the level from $967 million to one point 01 $2 trillion. so they are clearly not happy about that doesn't tackle entitlements. it doesn't really get what they see as the biggest driver of the debt. call these fees taxes. that will certainly be an

argument we hear from conservative critics. and, what they do on this will be interesting. americans for prosperity, and lobbyey tried to republicans of a deal. need democratic votes as well as republican votes to pass through the house. host: all right, jeremy herb from "the hill," thank you, sir. your phone calls now. diane, democratic caller, what do you think? caller: i was sinking about the deal that they made yesterday. with the cuts in everything, they are not thinking about the people out there who have families with unemployment, not extending it. what do they do if we decide to go on the ballot next year and reduce their pay and let them see how they do it? and let them pay for their own insurance. how can some of the democrats go as -- go with such deals?

people around the world are looking at america. anything toow up help jobs back here. if they stop helping these companies that have jobs overseas or the cayman islands. we can charge them every week for those jobs overseas. they are hiding their money. thank you very much. host: ok, patrick in photo. is c-spanod morning, never going to talk about the lawsuit that israel brought against china for state- sponsored terrorism? there is a front-page article on "the wall street journal." host: if you have a suggestion for us, you can tweet us. or you can e-mail. but what do you think about the budget deal that was announced? caller: i would like to see c-

span really do an in depth defense budget. at it, corporate america would consolidate their manufacturing. but when it comes to defense products, they spread all over the country to make sure all these senators get their they government projects to bring home to increase employment. you want to do something for the trait -- for detroit? military moving some bases from the southeast into upstate new york? i would like to see how much applause or how much of these republicans that lose their defense spending for manufacturing and bases, how much they would be thrilled about defense spending than. host: do you think they should have kept sequestration in place? caller: i can remember when clinton was supposedly against

america for all the defense cuts and then clinton's military fought in afghanistan and iraq. i would say the first thing to cut is fdic insurance. who has a quarter million dollars in the bank? the average person does not even have $10,000 in the bank. and why the federal government is guaranteeing bank accounts up to a quarter million dollars is beyond me. thank you for taking my call. host: we will go to to james in washington. you are on the air. caller: good morning. i was just wondering how they -- cut the unemployed unemployment when there are no jobs out there. .t kind of blows my mind what are these people going to do when there is no jobs? will they stand in soup lines like back in the 1920s? my point and not cut

the corporations tech loopholes where they are sending money off to the cayman islands. i just needed to get that off my chest. host: we will actually be talking about that, the an opponent benefits, the impact they have had on the economy and the fact that they are not included in this budget deal that was announced last night. this is what chairman paul ryan had to say when he stood next to the senate budget chairwoman, patty murray, last night in pressprice -- in their conference about what he got out of this deal. [video clip] >> i am getting more deficit reduction. so the deficit will go down more by passing this than if we did nothing. that is point number one. point number two, there are no tax increases your. we areumber three, finally starting to deal with autopilot spending. the mandatory spending that has not been addressed by congress for years.

this is it easy. this is the first divided government budget agreement since 1986. the reason why we haven't done a budget agreement when both houses were controlled by other parties is because it is not easy to do. we know we are not going to get everything we want and she is not going to get everything they want. host: that was the chairman of the house budget committee talking about the deal that they struck yesterday. and talking to conservatives about voting for it. house rules committee together later today to mark this up then design a rule for florida bay. leadership is hoping to get it on the floor in the house this week and a vote to approve it and in the senate would take it up next week. here is how the senator majority leader harry reid react to the deal. here's what he tweeted at yesterday. and the white house also on twitter yesterday reacting --

there is the white house tweet. you can go to the white house to read the full statement. and then speaker john boehner also putting this out yesterday in a tweet. james -- excuse me, david in new york, independent color. caller: good morning. thank you for listening to my comment. one simple question. i was an actual private banker and i never set up offshore trust for american citizens because it is against the law, because the tax law says that every individual citizen has to pay income tax on their worldwide income, wherever they are in it for whatever reason. savings account in new guinea, a company can you -- in kenya. know,ations, as we all they get to park their money all over the world and not pay taxes.

i don't understand why corporations have such a huge preference on skipping and avoiding taxes and american citizens like you and me don't. host: so you think this deal should have included closing tax loopholes. www.c-span.org apps -- caller: absolutely. host: that was to big of a reach. she would have loved to included that in a final bill, but it was too difficult to get to. is it better to have this, what people are calling a modest first step? caller: i guess, you know, when you have a baby, he takes baby steps. but these guys are babies. i'm so tired that they can get together on this or it's too much. like tip compromise o'neill and reagan did. nobody gets everything they want, everybody gets something. inexcusable that everybody

says oh, i can't make this deal. we have the republicans, the democrats, the conservatives, the tea party. do your job. the end result is that you are supposed to have a budget every year. we are not supposed to have sequesters and lay off people and have all this other business. to beerybody seems apathetic and accepted. i find it disgusting. i would fire every single one of them if i was chairman of the board and get a new group. host: ok, david. jim in gainesville, texas. caller: what i wanted to say is in therepresentatives house, on both sides, but particularly the conservatives, will accept this. i hear callers talking about corporations having some tax and manages for off shoring their funds. listen, that is a pretty simple fix, allowing repatriation. the people who are calling do not seem to understand you can't

.orce companies to do things the largest resort that way. they are there to protect their interests. but we can make it attractive to bring the money back and bring money back to grow the private economic engine. host: all right, jim. on twitter -- and then jim tweets in. and the house minority leader, nancy pelosi for the democrats, tweeted this out. she had this to say.

and as you heard from jeremy herb from "the hill" newspaper, it will take out democrats and republicans to pass the steel. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell had this to say. cheryl, boulder, colorado, democratic caller. caller: i have two comments about this. the first is i think they really ought to be ashamed of themselves that they are not talking about restoring unemployment compensation. people whoamps for

can't get a job because there are no jobs. secondly, i think it is really ironic that they are not willing forake away the tax breaks people who own private lear jets . they will slap ordinary air fees everyith higher time they fly. that is really of seen. thank you. host: on the farm legislation, we learned yesterday that they were unable to reach a deal on the five-year "farmville", which includes stamps. there is a big difference between the house and the senate negotiators on how much savings they want to get, how much cuts they want to make to the food stamp program. it seems that they will take this back up in january when they returned to keep negotiating on a larger "farmville" legislation. -- on aof the deal that larger farm bill legislation.

reformsof the deal that pensions for federal employees, "the wall street journal" says this deal includes $12 billion in pension changes. the proposed changes would on civilian3% employees hired. 30 in 2014. so this is for new employees. so this is what the budget chairman said to say about this and how the two sides came together on it. [video clip] question what we are asking for here, they are hard-working dedicated people that we respect, but it is only right and fair that if they do something more toward their pensions just like the hard- working taxpayer pays for their pensions in the first place. >> i want to add some to do

that. if we did not reach an agreement, we would be at sequestration levels very shortly and many of the same people would be facing furloughs, layoffs, and uncertainty. we have brought certainty back to all those people. murphy andwas patty paul ryan talking about the new deal. mark in philadelphia, the mccrea caller. what do you think? caller: i think it is the triumph of the military- industrial complex. some of the biggest drivers against sequestration is grumman and going and general dynamics. they are fighting people in the field over to take a pension increase, and executives at these big companies, general dynamics, sitting back in their offices are going to get their money back and they will get their big fat bonuses, you know.

and then what will they say to our military personnel who are taking a pay cut? thanks for your service. what a bunch of hypocrites. thank you. host: kristen in alaska, independent color. caller: hello, good morning to you. i have a really good idea about how to solve a lot of problems in one budget deal. this is what you do. you have a lot of corporations that are leaving the states because of the tax burden. and you can't get mad at the corporations because, if you are a holder of stock in a corporation, it has to read evidence. so it has to make the wisest decisions. if it can get a better tax system in another country and, at the same time, save on labor, that is what you want to do. but here's a way to get them all to come back and still get the tax money. this is what you do. you take the corporate tax rate

and put it at zero percent. this is not only going to bring a bunch of companies back that have moved overseas, but it will also give a great incentive to start up new corporations. and then, you take the capital gains tax and you raise it up to the income tax level so you will get that money back from your shareholders, right? on the capital gains. all the money that would have been taxed at of the corporation in the first phase. it will just come out of the dividends from his shareholders. and at the same time, you are starting new corporations. you are bringing old corporations back. this creates jobs. it stimulates economy. people make money. and you still get the tax revenues out of it. host: rand paul tweets this. we are talking about the budget deal that was struck and announced by the two principles

hop on capitol hill, paul ryan and patty murray and they held a press conference last night. by the way, if you're interested in the details of this legislation, it has been posted on the budget committees website so you can go to house.gov, senate.gov, and you can get a summary as well as a text of what is in this legislation. although in the gritty details forthcoming. the video, you can and you canspan.org see how they were able to strike a deal and what exactly is in it. "the wall street journal" editorial board weighs in on the agreement in their pages this morning. they say the question for republicans is what happens is this fails. it means more turmoil, more evidence that the gop can't

govern and the risk of another government shutdown. by contrast, this deal pushes the budget debate past next november and let's republicans focus on obamacare and its many ills. tim, the credit card. caller: -- tim, democratic caller. caller: i think they will just go for the two-year deal. host: you think they should do it, tim. caller: i think they're going to. host: do you think they should? caller: they're just tired of the shutdowns and the fussing and findings. as a compromise, i think they are to go for. host: what do you think of the deficit reduction component? not social security or medicare included in this. caller: well, they will probably deal with that later. host: and you think they should? caller: they will probably deal with that later when he gets serious. host: ok.

chris, springfield, missouri. caller: thank you very much. i agree with the gentleman although i don't favor paul ryan. i think it took a lot for him to step up to the plate and at least start to compromise. you've got some are -- at least you developed a plan and somewhere to start. it seems like everybody before who has been talking today is throwing their own piece out there, which is what it seems -- that is what you have to do with any kind of compromise, when two people disagree like that. whether it is divorce or anything like that, you have to have somewhere to start and that is what i really like to see this thing starting. it eases me as a businessman. it gives me a chance to look on the road two years and then my budgets and plan what i have to do without having to worry about three months later somebody will pull a blanket out from underneath me or something.

so i do agree. i'm glad to see that these two parties have family come together and started somewhere. bs, it is not good for both sides, but i agree with what "the wall street journal" said. at least it's a bad budget. if anybody has invented a home or anything, there are some sacrifices, some give-and-take and that is what this country is about. it is about time we started acting like adults instead of children. why is your business dependent on having certainty from washington? caller: i developed some software that would help a lot of ideas anding patents and copyrights and all and stuff here in it has -- all that stuff. it has been very difficult and entrepreneurs don't want to invest in new products and things because of this anxiety over what will happen in the next six months. or $3nvest $2 million

million in a company that i don't know whether or not i will even be able to use the tax leverage or anything like that? it causes so much uncertainty with a lot of new companies and , which thisovation country needs to start doing. we need to start investing in new technologies. we need to start dealing in new factories. like the gentleman said, bring back ideas about capital gains and corporations and start rebuilding this country, start -- you have an idea now, in the next two years, about our infrastructure, at least you have a budget. you can sit down and you can find your way through the pack. host: all right, chris. we are talking about the two- year budget deal announced last night. it is expected to come up for a vote in the house this week and then the senate will take up next week. they could be readying the bill tonight, later today in the house rules committee.

first over on the house side, the democrats will huddle and the republicans will huddle and see where the votes are for this deal. we are getting your thoughts on it this morning. going outside of washington to see what you think of it. we will be back to your phone calls in just a minute. but in other news, a new leader for gm. replaces akerman, becoming the first female ceo of a major maker. and more on the nsa surveillance program saying that the nsa is using internet cookies to find their targets. thea reporter says that cookie doesn't typically contain personal information, such as someone's name or e-mail address, but it does contain numerous codes that enable websites to uniquely identify a person's browser. so this is likely to come up today when the nsa director, keith alexander, will be

testifying before the senate judiciary committee. we will have coverage of that starting at 2:00 p.m. eastern time on c-span 3. -- a a program that program note for a, kathleen sebelius up on capitol hill today, 10:00 a.m. eastern time. will ben 2, she testifying before the house energy and house commerce subcommittee. larry in texas, republican caller, what do you think of this budget deal? toler: well, i am trying -- understand what he was saying about the veterans and the military. are totally and permanently disabled veterans and our terminally ill veterans, where does that leave us and would do we stand -- and where do we

stand? host: where do you stand? caller: i am a totally disabled veteran and i want to know where that leaves me as far as my benefits, my medication and my needs. host: under this budget deal? caller: yes. host: i think the cost-of-living provisions are for active military. again, go tomore, senate.gov and go to the budget committee and they have the text and the summary right there if you are interested in reading the legislation. steve in oklahoma city, democratic caller. yes, the first thing i wanted to address, one of the earlier callers had said about lowering the corporate tax rate, the companies should do their jobs -- ship their jobs out for

cheap labor. it has nothing to do with taxes. yes, we have a high rate of taxes but the companies don't pay. there are so many loopholes that they end up paying really low amounts. look at mitt romney. he pays 15% a year, more than nobody. everybody pays more taxes than that. new deal, i think it is ridiculous. they don't have the unemployment included in there. but that is the whole deal. with people keep voting republican and those are the things i go after. it is like the farm bill. the farm bill is being held up because republicans want to cut food stamps when there is another option. there are big subsidies that go to the billionaire farmers and we are paying their insurance premiums. they won't cut that, but they will cut food stamps. every time you look at what the republicans do, it is always the least christian thing. we will cut food stamps, benefits, retirees, pensioners,

vets who have been injured, the disabled. as who they go after and it is all about making sure that taxes go -- taxes never go up because that attacks the people that line their pockets. host: all right, steve. a previous caller mentioned president obama's handshake with roe castro yesterday in south africa. of the the front pages newspaper this morning. the had shaq -- the handshake with castro gives fuel to critics. it proved distracting for the president as he attended that tribute service along with many other world leaders. secretary of state john kerry was asked about that handshake at yesterday's hearing on capitol hill before the house foreign affairs committee. here's what he had to say. [ video clip] -- [video clip]

>> ladies and gentlemen, today is about honoring nelson mandela and the president is at an international funeral with leaders from all over the world. he didn't choose who was there. they were there to honor and mandela -- to honor mandela. and we appreciate that people will of the world from different walks of life who appreciated mandela and were friends came to honor him. said,k, as the president i urge you to read his speech or see it if you haven't read it. as the president said in his speech today, honoring nelson mandela, he said we urge leaders to honor mandela's struggle for freedom by upholding the asic human rights of their -- >> and would you say that role castro is upholding basic -- >> no, absolutely not. host: that was secretary of state john kerry popping about the handshake that president

obama had with raul castro at yesterday's tribute to nelson mandela. the secretary of state was also there to testify about iran lawmakersand asking to not go forward with the new round of sanctions, to let this deal that the u.s. and others brokered with iran, given more time to play out. here's what he had to say. [video clip] >> we are asking you to give our negotiators and experts the time and space to do their jobs. that includes asking you, while we negotiate, that you hold off opposing -- hold off imposing new sanctions. i'm not saying never. i just told you a few minutes ago. if this doesn't work, we are coming back and asking you for more. i'm just saying not right now. let me be very clear. this is a very delicate diplomatic moment. and we have a chance to address peacefully one of the most

pressing national security concerns that the world faces today. implications of the potential conflict. we are at a crossroads. we are at one of those really hinge points in history. one path could lead to an enduring resolution in the --ernational committees international community's concerns. the other could lead to hostility and potentially to conflict. and i don't have to tell you that these are high-stakes. we have an obligation to give these initiations opportunity to succeed. and we can't ask the rest of the p5 plus one and our partners around the world to hold up the rare -- hold up their end of the bargain if the united states will hold up their end of the bargain. host: secretary of state john kerry will be meeting with senators to talk about holding

off on those new round of sanctions along with rotary secretary lew today on capitol hill. the headlines today in "the wall street journal" says that a key senator will delay iran sanctions. that is tim johnson from south dakota. offas committed to holding on a new round of sanctions. so that is the latest on the deal. also, in other news, "washington times" reporting that the high court is likely to allowed the obama clean-air rules, affecting coal power plants. we also learned yesterday that a familiar face will be returning to the white house. is a veteran washington operative hired by the white house as a new senior advisor and will work to push executive actions and advance president obama's policy goals, including more vigorous and dermatol enforcement. people familiar with the

appointment say that he will be joining the white house in january. back to our topic here for all of you this morning, getting your take on the budget deal reached in washington yesterday. roger in forney, texas, independent caller. what do you think of it? theer: i would like to tell callers who are demanding an extension of the unemployment benefits to instead demand that the federal government enforce our immigration laws. 11 million to 20 million illegal aliens who are working in this country illegally, the job market would look much better for americans. sumter, what you think? is china a communist country, yes or no? host: what do you think? caller: last time i looked, it

was a communist country. host: what is the point you're trying to make? people are making a big deal that obama shook castro's hand. but we deal with china and that is a communist country. host: all right, jim from illinois, republican caller. caller: good morning, i just tuned into c-span. thanks to your coverage, i now know that they reached a deal. the tagline you have of the $63 billion in automatic cuts being restored, whether or not i would like or disapprove of this deal, for me, it depends on whether or raises or lowers the amount of deficit spending we have. that will contribute to the national debt. right now, we are very fortunate

in that we have record low interest damon's. -- interest payments. so it is not costing the u.s. budget a lot of money relatively speaking to service that debt. but if interest rates go back to distort norms, i believe the numbers i've seen are such that the size of ours ending for interest payments for those people that -- for countries alone us money, will rival the size of the pentagon budget or will be the third or fourth largest spending component. my concern is the debt. it,: so, jim, if you missed chairman paul ryan addressed that yesterday. so did patty murray, the senate budget chairwoman, saying that it brings down the deficit by $22 billion over the next decade. they do that by asking those in the military to pay more as part of their cost of living

also that federal employees, new federal employees come have to pay more into their pension. are a goodhink those start. did they mention how much the sequestration would be bringing deficit ifvel of the this deal had been reached and they continued with sequestration? host: how much it would've if they had continued with sequestration? caller: right. will this new debt result in a greater deficit-reduction or a lesser deficit reduction over this time? host: let me show you real quickly fight can what paul ryan had to say about the trillion dollar figure. so for 2014, the budget is one trillion. -- the budget chairman was

asked about this yesterday. reduction and the fact that they are taking away some of that sequestration. here's what he had to say. [video clip] >> i know we are getting in the weeds here. 2014 and12 billion for a trillion for 2015. why would republican support that? the budget i passed last session with near unanimity in the house was for 1019. the budget number that we fought for in the last session would not be heating until the year 2017 under this agreement. this is why think house republicans should be supporting this. host: jim, are you still on the line? what do you think? caller: i will prefer to see an

even lower level of spending because, as i say, my concern is the debt. i am a republican, but i was very dismayed by the lack of budgetary restraint during the bruce years. -- the bush years. to make him a that was one of the visible failings. because we will reach a point as the size of the overall budget grows and the size of the debt grows, we will reach a point where the system will be really strange. and if we have another large session, that will put a lot of pressure on everyone. my concern is all the entitlement programs that people are much more dependent on will really suffer. there will be a real crunch. host: all right. we will leave it there. we also want to tell you about other news that was made yesterday. rule waslled volcker

approved. emily stephenson joins us on the phone. emily, what is the volcker rule and why does it matter? guest: thank you for having me on. so the volcker rule is really essential part of the 2010 dodd- financial regulation overhaul. banks can't make risky trades with their own money, a sickly. basically, the -- their own money, basically they basically, the idea is that they cannot rely on federal debt. be able to use their own money that can get them into trouble. host: so this was proposed as part of dodd-frank. why is it just being approved now? guest: that is a great question. it has been three years since

dodd-frank passed and it took a long time to get this thing finalized. i think there's probably two things that are important to know about the genesis of the volker rule. the first thing is that the rule alsoroposed in 2011 but it proposed a lot of questions on how it should work. first of all, how banks need to be allowed to buy and sell stocks and bonds and things, that there clients can buy from them. establish that from making it with their own money. so there are a lot of questions in the proposal the regulators had to work through. and they got like 18,000, letters and some of them are hundreds of pigeons long -- hundreds of pages long. yet the thing that is important to note is the jpmorgan london whale situation in 2012, for j.p. morgan lost billions of dollars off of one guy trading madendon, really sort of

regulators rethink the way they were working on this rule. said thate, jpmorgan those trades would have been allowed under the volker rule and i think that is something that regulators really wanted to address. so they wanted to look at the way they were approaching the rule. host: why is it called the volker role? why is it named after paul volcker? who is he and how long is this rule? federalhe's a former reserve chairman and he is the person that sort of came up with the idea for the rule. dodd-frank and push for it to be included. the rule with all the instructions to the banks is oddly like 950 pages long or something like that. complicated? are there carveouts? caller: it is really, located. that is a really good question. one thing interesting about the

volker rule right now is that we have the final rule, but we don't really know how it will be applied. so we still have to wait to see how the federal reserve and fdic bank examiners will look at them and see if they are in compliance with the rules. we will have to wait to see what the instructions to them will be like on how it will be enforced. president obama yesterday put out a statement saying this -- it will make it illegal for banks to use -- caller: they have severe budget crunches. under dodd-hole lot

frank. they said they cannot do with the funding they been having. so they've been asking for more money. as you know, that is the fight with congress. host: thank you for your time. up next, we will return to our discussion on this budget deal. what was not included was an extension of unemployment benefits. we will talk with christine ellen's. -- christine owens of the national employment law project. with -- will talk we will be right back. >> the other thing that we could to to test whether roosevelt made a difference or not to the way history turned out is used my counterfactual history test. suppose the alternative for

wilke,nt -- not robert but suppose the republicans had nominated charles lindbergh, who , who great aviation hero was very isolationist and quite sympathetic to hitler's germany. president lindbergh and instead of a president roosevelt, history would have turned up quite differently. i doubt that he would have made the preparations that roosevelt made. that, after japan attacked the united states, that he would have oriented the war toward europe rather than to keeping it focused just on asia. that sense, frank one roosevelt made a big difference. sunday, 7:30 eastern and

pacific, part of american history tv, this weekend on c- span 3. it is a rare constant in american political life if you look at congress in 1901. less than 2% of members came from working-class backgrounds. they got into politics and eventually wound up in the congress. flash forward to the present day. the average member of congress spent less than 2% of their career doing service industry jobs are manual labor jobs. so this is something that really hasn't changed. lots of different aspects of the political process, cable news, the rise of senate elections, the decline of unions, all of this is happening. one of the constants during the last 100 years or so is that working class people are not getting elected to political office. >> does it matter that there is

a socioeconomic disparity between most elected officials and the citizens they represent? acholas carnes looks at white-collar government sunday night at 9:00 on afterwards. in january, mark levin will take your calls for three hours sunday, january 5 through all part of the tv weekend on c-span 2. whatnline, we want to know your favorite books were in 2013. throughout the month, join other readers to discuss the notable oakes published this year. >> "washington journal" continues. is here,istine owens the executive director of the national employment law project here to talk about unemployment benefits. we learned last night that a deal has been struck for the budget for two years. it does not include the extension of the unemployment benefits. what is your reaction? nearlywe are extra

disappointed and we are extremely concerned about the 1.3 million unemployed workers who have been unemployed for more than six months through the week between christmas and new year's will face an abrupt cut off of their unemployment benefits. there are hundreds of thousands of families that rely on these benefits just to get by. duringy is it happening the holiday season, which is painful, but it happens at a time when we are entering the hardest time of the year for most families in terms of providing heat, maintaining their households and the like. so it is a cruel blow to hundreds of thousands of long- term unemployed host: workers in this country. what type of unemployment benefits are we talking about? guest: we are talking about the federal unemployment compensation program.

they have used up all of their state benefits and still have not been able to find a job. when that happens, up until now, go oner has been able to the federal program. depending on the state, they between 14igible for and 47 weeks of additional benefits from the federal government. host: how did we get to this point that they are expiring? the background? guest: this program was adopted in june 2008 good it has been renewed 11 times since then. sometimes it was renewed for a month or two and then another vote for renewal, but that is how we have had 11 renewals. since then come increasing opposition to the program over the last couple of years and how we got to where we are today quite frankly is that house republican leadership simply won't allow a vote on extending the and implement benefits.

i think that if there were a vote in the senate, the extension would pass. i know that, in the house, there would be some republican support for it. so it is possible that we would get it in the house, but we can't get a vote in the house and speaker boehner says that they house will adjourn at the end of this weekend members will go home. so that is why we are where we are. the hope had been that it would be included as part of this budget deal could it didn't -- the deal. it didn't make it into the budget deal. a votect there will be on the medicare doc fix. at a pointwe are where, unless the house and the republican leadership allows a vote, 1.3 million workers unemployed workers will run out of benefits. host: is the economy still in a recession? guest: the economy is not formally in a recession. millions of people feel that we are still in recession.

the economy has been growing slowly for several years now and job growth actually began again in february 2010. but we still have very high and employment. we have an unemployment rate of 7%. if we add to that rate all the millions of people who have dropped out of the labor force or chosen not to enter the force , largely because they don't think they can find jobs, we would actually have more than 10% unemployment. so that is an extremely large number of people who are officially unemployed plus those who would probably work if they could get jobs but they are not looking because they don't think they can get jobs. host: here is a headline from "the huffington post" recently about the latest job report. it several democrats about extending benefits. they said that congress has

never before allowed benefits to expire when unemployment was higher than 7.2% to since the unemployment insurance has been created, congress has never cut back on these benefits when unemployment was over 7.2%. below that. so why is it necessary to extend it again? guest: there are several reasons for that. the unemployment rate itself is not a magic number that should determine what happens. we have more than 4 million long-term unemployed workers. the numbers continues to be at fairly at extraordinarily high levels. the rate of one and -- the rate share of the, the entire workforce that is unemployed, it is still more than twice as high as it is -- .t has been and we have a very low rate of

labor force participation. that means that people who say that they want to work and they're looking for work. unemployment has declined. it has fallen from 7.9% at the beginning of the year to the most recent rate of 7%. but most of the decline is because people are opting not to join the labor force. they are choosing not to try to work. again, if we added those people back in, unemployment would really be above 10%. so the 7.2% figure really isn't meaningful in the context of why we need this program. we still have three officially unemployed worker for every job opening. and that doesn't count all these people who have left the labor force. so we still have a very tight economy for long-term unemployed workers. host: the budget deal does not include an extension of benefits. we are hoping that that will still happen. -- willes not, wilson people still receive unemployment from state

governments? guest: yes, people will get their state benefits. unemployedbecomes after the end of this year and who is eligible for benefits from their states will continue to receive them. people who are currently receiving the federal benefits or who reached the end of their state benefits who will no longer have access to federal benefits. and by the end of 2014, that number will be more than 3 million people. if you are currently receiving unemployment benefits or you are unemployed, we want to hear from you. you can call in. sharon in pennsylvania, democratic caller. because i amalling severely affected as a result of these benefits being cut. and i havetrades been looking for a job for eight months and it is very disheartening and dismaying to

me that a lot of employers are reluctant to hire somebody like me because of the simple fact that i won't be there. they see my application in my skills and my qualifications and they are reluctant to hire me. i am forced this morning to look at jobs at service stations. we want somebody who will be here for six months. they are not looking do have somebody who will be there temporarily. you can see from my application this is only a short-term transition to me. is very difficult and that i will be homeless after a short of thecause i am one ones whose benefits will expire on the 28th. i have no place to stay. i am dependent on myself. i have no car insurance. it hasn't stopped -- expired. tree with very little

options. and i am actively look for work. so, i am just hoping somebody, some type would have of understanding in regard to people's situations such as mine and maybe set -- step in and help us. we really are looking for work. people have no heart whatsoever to cut us off. that is my situation. when you go to a job interview, do they ask you about unemployment benefits and do you think that works against you? yes it does.ller: i have my associates degree and i'm actively looking for work. i am an electrician. i recently graduated from a vocational school a couple years ago. that most people want you to have five years of

experience. how do i get the experience if you do not ring me in and teach me the hands-on experience i need. a job.cannot find >> all right. >> first, i am sorry about your situation. there will be more than 100,000 other pennsylvanians who will lose federal unemployment coverage if congress does not act to renew it. situation simplifies several things. one is that he has skills and education. he is actively looking for work. that is true of most long-term unemployment workers. he says the fact he is himployed itself is hurting and his job search. that is certainly true. long-term unemployment workers who contract us tell us it is like a catch-22 in order to get a job. you need to have a job. the longer you go without having

a job, the harder it is to get a job. that is because of employers concerns about someone's skills but a lot of it is just because people make assumptions about the long-term unemployed. "why have they been unemployed so long and can they really do the job? " what we most need is for employers to open up their doors to long-term unemployed and give them opportunities. >> james on twitter says, first question on the job tests, have you ever been on unemployment? pennsylvania, a republican caller. >> hello. if they do not extend these unemployment rates, unemployment -- it will go down. unemployment will be down. take them off the

unemployment role. >> how will it work? what will happen to the unemployment rate if the benefits are not extended? it is likely that the justloyment rate -- let me say, it is possible the unemployment rate will continue to decline. havingson is because benefits actually keeps people actively engaged in looking for work. lookinghey have to be for work in order to get benefits. second, they have the resources they need to look for work and pay for auto insurance and afford public transportation, pay the cost of reproducing .esumes losing access to unemployment benefits will have the effect of pushing more people out of the labor force. they will not have the means they need to continue to look for work so many will just give up.

that lowers labor force participation and reduces the number of people who say they are actively looking for work and they are officially unemployed. >> tony, your next. independent color. >> thank you. good morning. my benefits are about ready to run out. i live in a touristy area here at the beach. our coastline is motels, restaurants, gift shops, and what have you. would be think there jobs everywhere and there are. ourproblem we have here is president of the chamber of commerce goes to washington and says the people who live in the area, working evil, do not want these jobs very these $10 an hour jobs are just going on applied for. this is such a lie. they have brought in all these hard toand it is so compete with russian kids, israeli kids, chinese kids now. they just went and asked for

people.al this is a lie and a bad one. it is a horrible thing that we have here and we have got to come eat with this. that is it. our local media, you call them and it is a recall. councilman is like a brick wall. he will not even step up for us. >> tony, i am sorry for your situation. carolina has been hard hit in terms of jobs lost. tony's point that unemployed workers would like to have great jobs with great pay and would like to be able to do what they had been doing in the past and earn what they had earned. they will take almost any job they could get. there are a number of barriers for them to get jobs. in an area heavily dependent on work,m, and seasonal

there are plenty of barriers. there is an assumption the long- term unemployed are not able or willing to do these jobs. >> a tweet -- guest: the research does not suggest that is the case. the reality is most people who become reemployed after a time of unemployment and up taking a job at lower pay anyway. older workers.r the research does not suggest long-term unemployment is people from taking a job. 260 nineenefit is dollars a week. just a little bit over $1000 a month. that is less than the average housingpends simply on

alone. there is no real incentive and the unemployment program to keep people from looking for work area -- work. senator rand paul was quoted recently as saying, -- and a tweet -- i would suggest maybe they need to go through a time of long-term unemployment. rand paul is wrong. people do not get 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. i wish senator paul would talk to some of the long-term unemployed workers we have talked to who just listened to the three that testified last week. adults, one of them 67 years old, the other in her 50's. the other in their 50's. all had long-term careers in the workforce.

one was a microbiologist and one was a skilled electrician. years, they lost their jobs for a variety of reasons related to the economy. they are desperately looking for work. they want nothing more than to go back to work. that is what the workers who wete us last night saying, cannot believe this is happening, it is all we have to rely on, we want jobs, but until we get jobs, can we not get this a sick means of support? you are referring to last week before the democrats holding a hearing with those by unemployment and hearing about extending these benefits. however, we heard from the white house and from nancy pelosi last night in a tweet saying they endorsed the budget deal and not holding it up over extending

unemployment benefits. are they pushing hard enough for it? guest: we hope they continue to push. we think there will be forcing the vote. senator murray pushcart in the negotiations. they had a choice. they wanted to roll back some of .he sequester-imposed cuts republican leadership absolutely refused to put revenues and new taxes on the table. we believe democratic leadership in the senate and house and white house are deeply committed to renewing unemployment benefits. we know a number of republicans are deeply committed to doing so. a vote inial there be the house. if speaker banner has to decide to keep the house in session longer or bring it back in, that is what he should do. davide it next --host: next. independent. morning.ood

i just wanted to say, i have sincen unemployment february and i have found little jobs here and there. on weeks i worked, i did not sure unemployment. -- my issue isly the employers i have interviewed to abouthave talked unemployed -- employment opportunities, they seem to want for even the small front-line supervisor jobs, they want a bachelors degree. that whenf those ones i started working back in the started sleeping a floor in a furniture factory. i don't myself up to a director's job. i lost my job because of mismanagement in the company i work for.

not of my own doing. myork for two companies all life, one for 20-something years and another for 18 years. host: are you offered the opportunity to get technical training, to go back to school? caller: some. i have looked into that. i fall into what i have called a black hole. i am 53 years. -- of age. in between being a young man and an older man. folks that want younger folks in the workforce now. it is just frustrating. rand paul, bless his soul, i know he is a good man, has he ever been on unemployment? how does he know we are not out here seeking jobs and just want to sit on our butts all day? we are not. again, they've it is the

example of what is going on for the long-term unemployed. he has been in the workforce since the 70's. he has worked his way up and he will do almost anything and is encountering barriers that are probably arbitrary and unnecessary. the interesting and is in this half of just under relatively recent college grads actually working in jobs for which college education is not required. as we have moved more and more toward a low wage service retail-based economy, what we have is a skills mismatch that goes in the opposite direction from what some people sometimes talk about. we have a lot of people in terms of formal education, have more than what they need for their jobs. >> will the state and federal governments pay for people like david to go back to school? guest: it is very state to

state. some have robust programs that combine with the opportunity for training and continue to be on unemployment while you're getting trained so you're not having to actively look for work. i do not really know what north carolina's o graham is. it is the only state in the nation that has gone off of the federal unemployment benefit program and has also cut back on the weeks of benefits workers theget here in my bed is state program with respect to jobs training is not a very robust one. questionnaire talking with the executive director of the national employment law project. long-term unemployment benefits set to expire december 31, it is an extension of them, not part of the budget deal announced last night by paul ryan and senate budget chairwoman patty murray. thisouse looking to get deal ready to go for a vote on

the floor this week. you have heard they will also try to do a vote on the so- the medicarex, reimbursement for docs, and you hope they include with that the extension for unemployment benefits. >> there needs to be a docs fix. i hope that does not get held up. are depending on that and more important, millions of seniors. otherwise, there cost will go up. there needs to be a docs fix. but there should be a fix for unemployed workers, too. there is no reason why they cannot attach the expansion of federal unemployment benefits to the doc fix. tweeting and about so far not an extension of these benefits. expect a new wave of homelessness and another says, for those who can find jobs -- guest: we need to raise the minimum wage. much of our job growth is in the low wage sector.

we have seen over the last 30 shift toward, a more low-wage employment. job, workers in low-wage the median age for a low-wage worker now is 45 years old. many of them have -- kids. that is crucial to helping boost the economy. can only have resources to him back into the economy if they have benefits. low-wage workers need higher pay in order to have more resources to pump back into the economy. >> the federal minimum wage, you can see how it has gone up over the years. 1996, it was cluttered dollars and $.75. chucky in richmond, virginia, a democratic caller up next. >> good morning.

thank you for c-span. this is the season of giving. what do we get from our congress? taking away benefits to the poor. you have got the unemployment benefits expiring on december 31. they take away the food stamps. you cannot balance the budget on the backs of the poor. you give companies billions of dollars in tax relief and all that stuff. it is ridiculous. another issue about unemployment, i am an electrician, a carpenter, mechanic, but i cannot even find work in virginia because all the companies want to hire illegal nobody is talking about how many illegal aliens are in this country working, but americans cannot even get jobs. that is really sad. >> got it, chuck. >> chuck, you are from my home state of virginia. i have family

who live in richmond. the unemployment crisis brings out a lot of feelings around who is to blame. that people who are looking for work are to blame. i think what is to blame right now for the crisis facing long- term unemployment workers is that congress is not scheduling a vote on renewing the benefit for these workers. i would say to all of the colors that what we also need is more focused on, how do we create good jobs in the country, how do we provide incentives for employers to hire the long-term unemployed. how do we provide the training some may need in order to move into different careers, and how do we make sure our jobs pay living wages to all people who work in them? i think that is a challenge that we as a nation facia and -- face, and that we owe it to each other in this season of giving to try to rise to that

challenge. group put together this graphic that shows the impact of not extending the unemployment benefits. what are we looking at? guest: by the end of this year, 1.3 million long-term unemployed american workers who will lose their unemployment benefits if congress does not act. then going into next year when people start running out of is nobenefits and there additional federal benefits to fall back on, another 850,000 by the end of the first quarter. other work i believe the labor department has done shows the number rises to just around 3 million altogether by the end of june and by the end of the year, it will be roughly 3.5 million. economicas been the impact of the unemployment benefits on the u.s. economy at large so far since they have been extended in 2008?

what will be the impact if they are not extended out into thousand 13? >> let me start with the impact on people. since the program was first enacted in 2008, almost 24 million americans have received unemployment benefits. that is a lot of american families, it includes 19 million children in those families. those benefits have reduced the poverty rate in 2012 alone by 2.5%. 2.5 million more americans would in 2012len into poverty but for unemployment benefits. overall, since the program was created, it has kept more than 11 million americans out of .overty the people who receive these benefits altogether have gotten roughly $25 billion in benefits. they spend their benefits in the local economy. the estimates range from about

of gdp percent in terms growth. we know the estimates are if this program is not renewed, it will cost us 240,000 jobs next year. democratic caller, brooklyn, new york. morning.ood i really appreciate the conversation about unemployment benefits. most ofeen unemployed this year. i worked once this year in the previous year, i work pretty much the whole year. two different jobs, working in the security field. to -- for a while, unemployment, poverty, what is wasting in washington,

$24 billion because of a shutdown, it all comes to me as, our politicians on both sides are out of touch with the average person. in the 1980's, i remember minimum wage. hour back in the 80's. 1984. now, it is seven dollars and change. poorhing is wrong, because people are being forgotten. i really do not want to be on unemployment. i would rather be working. there are millions of people who would rather be working. well, we can make more money with less. i am 53. i do not look 53, i do not sound 53, but when they say, what are you looking to do?

-- i put my date of birth on the application and they crunched the numbers and this guy is 53 and maybe people will not want to work with them and they want to work with someone younger. i think, like you are saying, there has to be an incentive that is done from employers to motivate them to hire. inhave to be more creative how we apply for work and how the government is connected. something has to be done. it is not like it was in the past where you submit your resume. everything is different now. >> how do we change? in this environment. good pointsd makes in terms of incentives for employers to hire the long-term unemployed. eliminating the job application requirement that really become

proxies for age discrimination, or whenr date of birth you finish school or things like that. employers should voluntarily and affirmatively give the long-term unemployed a chance. but if they are not willing or able to do that, then the long- term unemployed should have legal recourse for being kept out of jobs simply because of their long-term unemployment. i want to point out several of our callers noted they are in their 50's. --ng the long-term older long-term unemployed, older ones are disproportionately represented. some in the 50's, i do not think of them as being an older worker, but many employers do. in that situation, they are facing a double whammy of being unemployed and being an older worker. there is no question age discrimination is alive and well in the workforce. >> we are talking with christine about federal

unemployment, long-term benefits, expiring on december 31 unless congress acts. it is not part of the budget deal announced last night. james of texas, what do you think? i have a couple of questions for christine. if you consider the people who have quit looking, it is almost 12%, and i was wondering, if she could tell us in specific terms and not generalities such as, "we need to learn to create more jobs," how big lies in almost 12 million or more people to compete for the same number of jobs that are out there is going to solve the unemployment problem in this country when you are increasing the number of people looking for work. i would also like to know who it is that funds her project. is it the taxpayers, lobbyists got the weirdest her group had her money -- get their money

from. >> i would be happy to answer the second question first. like most nonprofit organizations, our funding comes from a range of foundations and small private employers and a lot of individual donors and we have a lobbyist on staff. we are not any different from any other nonprofit organization. question about how legalizing undocumented workers will make a difference, it will make a huge difference. that is because as long as there are 11 million people or whatever the estimates are now, in this country who are working without legal status, they are very vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. very vulnerable to being forced to work at sub minimum wages, it and working conditions that are illegal in terms of safety and health, sexual harassment, and the like.

exerciseafraid to their right to complain because if they do so, they risk being deported. this has an impact across the entire workforce. it is not just on those individuals. it also pulls down wages and working conditions for everybody. if we legalize the status of undocumented workers and the fear of retaliation is removed and they can enforce their rights and their advocates can enforce their rights, this will help lift rate -- lift wages. lifting wages will create jobs because it will boost people's capacity to spend. this is an economy based on consumption. the more people spend, the more jobs will be created. we will be better off as a nation if we legalize undocumented workers. we will go to our line for republicans. ed, unemployed. caller: good morning. the discussion has gotten around to what i wanted to talk about.

inm caught in a squeeze terms of expiring benefits at the end of this month and age discrimination. you are talking about people in the 50's. i am 61. i have been out of work for a couple of years. due to corporate downsizing. it is girl out there. aally brutal if you are in certain age category. i am out of the point where i can collect social security. but, that is just the facts on the ground. as you pointed out and your guest pointed out, the long-term unemployed, i have to believe when she said they are disproportionately represented by older workers. >> right. the reality is, older workers, workers over 40 and 45, are less likely to lose their job in the

first instance in a downturn. when they do lose their jobs, they are more likely to become longer-term unemployed. that is a function of age discrimination, a functioning part of, because of their tenure in the workforce, they are more likely to have higher wages, considerable it. so, there may be a mismatch between what employers think they are willing to do and what they are in fact willing to do. there are a variety of reasons why it is tougher for older and unemployed workers to become reemployed. this is a real crisis. one of our witnesses last week was 67 years old erie he is a skilled electrician and has an doing it for 40 years. it is the heart and soul of who he is. he loves his work and does it

well. he is old enough to be on social security, but he wants to be working. but it is very difficult for over -- for older workers, including very skilled older workers, to get new jobs. >> we are talking with the executive director for the national limit law project. previously, the director of public policy from 2001-2000 eight. randi, you are up next for our guest in wisconsin. republican caller. hi. caller: good morning. you are talking about the jobs and stuff and to get these people off unemployment. christine, you should be in the oval office in front of president obama saying, "line. -- opened up the pipeline. pipeline. open up the

thesaid at the beginning of program, if somebody is off on unemployment for a long time, employers are likely not to hire you. you read the article of what -- of what paul -- of what rand paul said nu said he was wrong. you have to give up your cell phones and cable tvs so you can be out looking for a job. so many things you could be you areher than what doing up here, complaining. >> we will get a response. assessment ofdy's the unemployed and the choices they are making is just completely wrong. we heard from someone last night who said, "i will lose my home. " unemployment is the number one cause of mortgage foreclosures. we heard from one of the witnesses last week who literally just a day or two before the hearing had finally

gotten a job after applying for hundreds. she said she was on the verge of losing her home. two orare not having three color televisions and expensive data plans and the like on unemployment insurance. they are trying to hold on by their fingernails to their homes and health care, which they're having to provide on their own because they are no longer employed, keeping their kids in school, to having adequate nutrition for themselves and their children. they are trying to get by. they are not living in the lap or being unwilling to forego things they do not necessarily need. you have to have a phone to look for a job. you want more information, you can go to their website or follow them on twitter. christine owens, thank you very much. we will continue our conversation about the budget deal announced last night with senator ron johnson, republican

of wisconsin. marco's mother jones magazine will be here to talk about gun deaths among children aged 12 and younger since the sandy hook shootings one year ago. first, a news update from c-span radio. >> a military partnership is taking place in the middle east. a summit meeting in kuwait was wrapped up by agreeing to establish a joint military command, paving the way for tight security coordination as iran pursues outreach efforts. the news agency reports the military partnership was one of several initiatives agreed to. back here on capitol hill today, the senate plans to consider president obama's choice of u.s. court join the of appeals for district columbia. the associated press says her nomination was freed for a vote after democrats changed the

luster rose last month. senate approved two of the president posses nominees. patricia was confirmed on the search it -- circuit. the senate against their day today at 2:00 p.m. eastern. watch live senate coverage on c- span two. .he set -- the house comes in this just in, time has named pope francis the 2013 time person of the year. who editor, nancy gibbs, met pope francis in rome last a newwrites, "rarely has player on the world stage captured so much attention so quickly." those are the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> this is a train depot. trains.st holding in you can imagine the hustle and bustle of all the activities here in the campaign. you had tables and desks and

phones going off and letters coming in and out of the area. she was helping run the campaign from this small building. this is where rosalynn carter helped organize the tea -- the peanut brigade. it was an offshoot of the high neighbor campaign technique used during his run for governor. it was basically a way to get the word out about jimmy carter using volunteers, going door-to- door, shaking hands, giving out literature, and spreading the word. it was a method so effective it helped get the presidency. >> see it saturday on c-span at 7:00 p.m. eastern and monday, we will start our encore visitation of season two, edith roosevelt to grace coolidge. host: we want to welcome back to

our table senator ron johnson, a republican of wisconsin and a member of the house budget committee. the hill newspapers as the budget deal is sealed. it?guest: n off on the deal is well struck between the chairman's. both good people trying to come to an agreement. what we did in terms of the actual conference committee is we held a couple of hearings, which were also somewhat useful. the first hearing were opening statements. you generally won't -- roll your .yes to shut down the government. i think the federal government does enough harm to our economy -- that was the first thing i think the chairman got from that first hearing, to try

to do something that will prevent a government shutdown so we do not harm the economy further. a second hearing, we actually had the congressional budget office director -- the process of that meeting was, how do you define the problem. to get a simple answer to one question. i tried it with treasury secretary lou and the acting omb director. they have never had it in them to admit the fact it has no value. you have to first of may you have a problem and then properly define it if you are going to move to real solutions. the director finally admitted you have an asset in social trust funds. that is offset by the liability

from the treasury department. the federal government has no monetary value. anyone telling you it is solvent in 2000 -- 2023, it is not. we are already cash negative. social security will hemorrhage $12.7 trillion and will pay out more benefits it takes in in the payroll tax and medicare is worse. guesthost: are you a yes or a n? guest: this is brand-new and i want to take a look at it. operating in good faith to avoid a government shutdown. paul had a problem. do not have enough votes to just pass a clean resolution of budget control. that is what it looked like to me. i want to look at the real details. i am disappointed we are not able to live by the budget

control caps on. you only address the convention -- congressional area side. work showing all the government. there is, even the discretionary spending accounts. there is a lot of money we could save in the federal government. we do not yet have the will and government to do that. that is other people's fault. folks have written a letter to the house speaker saying, keep this act in place. go ahead with the next round. guest: we have enormous problems. when i was at the white house coming to areas of agreement, i was looking at this not as a ten-year budget window, which

are magically understates the size of the problem, just 30 years. we have a baby boom generation retiring. a demographic problem. other than the first $7 trillion, somewhere between 56 and 170 trillion dollars of deficit. i am sympathetic with conservatives of the house but i am sympathetic of what paul is trying to do, let's not have a government shutdown because long-term, if you will solve our nation's problem, it comes with economic growth. but harming the economy and must do everything we can to grow the nations economy. ofanother house member, part the tea party group, treated this. the only good aspect of the budget deal -- guest: if conservatives are going to finally enact house if that does start saving social security and medicare for future generations, we need to be as unified as possible.

from my standpoint, i am one of those fiscal conservatives. going around killing my powerpoint presentation to over 10,000 citizens in the state of wisconsin. that is a lot of citizens. i do not sit -- sugarcoat the problem. enormous financial problems. the only way we can actually start solving these is we need get into a position where we can enact them. we will not do it if we are dividing ourselves. the other side refuses to knowledge the problem. i'm closed doors, president obama admits the high -- the problem with medicare is for will getlar, people three dollars in benefits. publicly, he says medicare just requires modest reforms. i am sorry, a program that's million a day, $1 trillion 10 years in the future, takes in a dollar and spend three, that is what we are dealing with in washington. one style of the aisle refuses

to knowledge the problem and will not work with us. any of the negotiations, what is the first thing you hear out of the democrats mouth? it is off the table. it sounds like -- it is not like it is politically's -- popular to talk about these programs that we acknowledge the problem and we are willing to work with anybody in good faith to solve long-term basis. we do not have the willing partner on the other side. >> or republicans willing to put tax revenue on the table? guest: they have already gotten it. i am disappointed in -- millions of americans realize they are not being protected and it is not affordable. he had about $1 trillion in tax increases in the health-care law. the fiscal, with cliff deal, yet another $700 billion. in the budget control act, we got about 2.1 train dollars of spending restraint. we have done one

simpson-bowles. have you noticed it is not enough? the long- addressing term deficit. it is spending. if you want revenue government, grow your economy. i know have -- i have thrown in the numbers. of thehe trough recession, when revenue really declined quite a bit. today, this year, in fiscal year 2013, the one that just ended, we raised $669 billion more in economic growth. per year. there was no tax increase. that was just economic growth. the tax increase, president obama got the fiscal with 10 years. average out, $60 billion. economic growth, i think you can prove, is 10 times more punishve than trying to success, which i think arms

economic growth. the budget deal ups spending and perpetuates waste and takes pressure off of government to be more efficient and effective. tom has done a phenomenal to working with the office really identify areas of duplication. different jobs training programs spending $31 billion per year. you would save tens of billions of dollars doing that. he has identified all kinds of waste and duplication in the defense department. know exactly where thomas coming from and i agree if we could just establish the cap. it takes two to tango. we have one side of the aisle that just want to spend money. they are not worrying about the long-term fiscal situation. we are mortgaging the future of

our kids. shares, $54,000. it will be $75,000. your pretty young. i cautioned young people, you want to add $150,000 for your parents share and $150,000 your grandparents share, because the debt is not going away and it will be on your back in the backs of your kids and grandkids. >> you have not decided how you will vote on the budget deal. when will you make the decision? guest: we will see what harry reid does. i do not think the house needs a whole lot of advice from senators. i respect the position paul is in. desk this is deal not his solution. he has shown it. he had to try to negotiate something. i will let the house do their work and we will see what happens. sympathetic with both

sides, but i want to look at the details. >>) we are learning the house rules committee is likely to take this up today at some point. the budget deal to get it on the floor as well as with a three- month extension of the medicare reimbursements for doctors. greg is a first-year for the senator in kansas city, missouri. a republican caller. hi. you are on the air. >> good morning. yes. there is overwhelming evidence proving -- [inaudible] told you be real -- willing review the evidence and adjust concerns echo demanding a new investigation? this audio faded in and out. there is a group of people out there that do not think the investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks with adequate enough by the federal government. do you have an opinion about that? we pretty well

know what happened there. i'm willing to take a look at the evidence to matter what the situation is. one of the true rules of the house is robust oversight of the federal government. from my standpoint, i think we know what happened in 9/11. i am concerned about our national security, part of the problem the house is dealing with, as well. i know the white house is concerned about the defense to permit. these threats are real. i am pretty highly sympathetic with people in armed services .oncern about the readiness. there are plenty if managed properly, we can have an effective defense that addresses the security situation and security issues facing the nation in a more cost-effective way. >> he referred to this is the $3 billion in automatic cuts that will -- were restored under the budget deal, saving the pentag n

pentagon and some domestic programs. defense -- between we plus of other discretionary spending and that is really where you can find it. both accounts, you can find real duplication with proper management, with prioritize appropriations. of the untold story. senator harry reid in control of the senate over the last two years has not passed even one appropriation bill. that is the primary role of congress to authorize government activity and funded. in the senate, we have not a one -- not passed appropriations bill. let's go to karen, a democratic caller. caller: i set -- i think senator johnson needs to go back to where the problem began. that is when president bush was has -- as hasand

been said, they put the wars on the credit card, the medicare part d on the credit card, and them getting their increase in revenue, no, they finally let the bush tax credits expire. so i think he needs a reality check and instead of them having their dog and pony shows, which i watched c-span all the time, they need to legislate. guest: i was not here then. i was back in wisconsin running a factory land providing jobs. i understand numbers. we have increased our debt by six joy in dollars in just the last five years. the wars in total cost $1.5 trillion. are they a part of that? again,

that is over 12 or 13 years. are they part of that increase deck for it -- deficit? i am taking a look at, here is the situation today and it is utterly unsustainable. our projections, and we have gone to budget experts and outside think tanks, they said we are still too low, what we are shown $170 in deficit spending. 28 chili dollars the second decade and $71 trillion the third act aid. let me put that in perspective. the total net private asset base of the united states today is 96 joy in dollars. so that is a problem there -- heidi $6 trillion. so that is a problem -- $96 trillion. is a problem. we have to get serious. i am a problem solver. the first step in solving any problem, it you have to admit you have one.

there are far too few people here in washington willing to acknowledge it. you have to do find it and that is what i'm doing with a 30 year budget window. independent caller. caller: two quick questions and one, and most people are asking themselves right now. yesterday, one congressman ryan -- when commerce and -- when congressman ryan -- they were going to take pensions from retirees.ilita i picked up on that late and it has not come out yet but it will. i would like to know why. and i want to know why they were chosen versus how come the pensions of the retired federal politicians,ke the

like the senators and the congressman who are retired, how come they are not taking from their pension? thanks for the question. i am concerned about that as well. conservative, the defense of the nation is number one. the finest among us who stepped up to the plate, we need to support those folks in training when they are on the field and when they come home. can you explain what is in this deal? is happening is apparently a little more contribution to pensions of people in the military, but also for new federal employees. hearings.ld there are multiple studies showing federal workers on average are compensated higher than private sector people. that is a problem. we all want to make sure any public-sector worker is fairly complicated -- compensated. in business, you learned the concept of benchmarking against

competitors. we have to do the same thing to the federal government. in terms of total cost for benefits for federal workers, $34,000 range for public officials, and for private sector workers, it is midteens. $15,000. that is out of whack. startedportant we dressing that. the political realities of the negotiations, apparently, as paul would have liked to have addressed the overall federal employees situation, but, what democrats ares, not that supportive of defense spending and there will continue to be cuts in defense spending coming from the defense department in terms of dealing with their budget. budgetary caps. this is one recommendation they had. the negotiators decided to go the defense department's recommendations on that one. host: when you look at key dates for budget negotiations, it looks like they may meet the december 13 deadline here of

coming up with a deal. the house and senate go into holiday recess next week. the current continuing resolution expires the 15th. a second-year of sequestration would begin that day as well. february 7 is one of the key dates where the government hits the next debt ceiling. a tweet -- guest: i do not believe so. the estimates are we will basically raise 80% of all federal dollar expenditures through revenue. expenditures already covered by revenue. social security is more than 20% of federal revenue. we have social security trust fund bonds. have no value in terms of monetary. here is one area they actually have value. if you do not raise the debt ceiling, they are presented -- prevented.

they can sell those bonds to fund social security. there is no reason at all to ever default on any obligation. certainly, a true debt default is just defaulting on our debt. there is no chance of that happening whatsoever. there has been an awful lot of scaremongering. part of thee on the administration of this president. we should not do that. .here are pieces of legislation prioritize spending. if, at some moment, when the president comes to congress thatg for the authority, -- let's describe what an increase in debt means. robust debateve a and ought to hire a ties spending. that would be one ease of legislation. another when it comes to continuing resolutions, if you do not have appropriation bills passed, there is a great piece of legislation. he and the government shutdown

act. i would love to see the house passed -- past that. --pass that. give 190 days to come up with an approach the -- appropriations bill to fund it. if not, drop one percent. it is not a pretty ross s but a fiscal discipline and when we are bankrupting our nation, we thisa fiscal discipline on political process in washington. sea of tranquility wants to know this -- i am a manufacturer. i really do believe in process. you have to have a good process if you want to produce a product right now the process is utterly broken here. what i would have done -- this is my proposal for the last funding fight we had. house leadership and

said, what we ought to do is pass a continuing resolution in july, asked them for a one-year delay of health airlock -- health care law. buteeds to be repealed let's ask for a delay. we look like political geniuses had that been our approach, rather than to force them to defund. having it in my mind the democrats probably would not support that, the final point was, the and government shutdown at. government shutdown act. i would've had the house passed the automatic shutdown bill to get by these funding crisis ease and put a lot of pressure on the appropriators, on the process to actually do their job. have not passed an appropriations bill in the senate in two years. most americans do not understand it is impossible to convey the dysfunctions here in washington dc. host: republican line, bill.

caller: thank you for taking my call. i am really concerned about the unemployment as well as the cut that will bring back. that will bring back. let's say, for instance, there is the largest retail dealer in the united states out there and they are adding all of these machines that they do not have to pay for the employee and they do not have to pay for the insurance and the race and the retail industries are going sky high and everything else. you could buy an apple pie that was at last year's price, one dollar more in one year. prices are going up on everybody else. being restored. how will they affect the retail industry today for employment and stuff like that? they are getting away with a lot of that, taking five or six people off the line and maybe a

department store or something. and not having to pay the taxes. they do not have to pay the insurance. the wage for the person, whoever they are. guest: thanks for the question. in general, when you have got the federal government through the federal reserve trying to manage monetarily this gross fiscal mismanagement, so we are keeping industries artificially low, so what you are doing is making capital incredibly cheap. that is not a good thing. thing but itood has not worked. what it does do is when you make capital cheap, it makes it easy for businesses to move toward robotics. when you have other government policies that increase the cost --labor, one of the things continue to increase unappointed benefits or make it difficult -- employers to actually unemployment benefits or make it difficult for employers to

actually pull their weight. you have all these things for workers that make it difficult and it is a disincentive for people to hire people because they realize once you have got them on the payroll, it is difficult to get rid of people that are not doing a good job. we have to make sure we make america an attractive place for business investment and expansion and job creation. that now, we are not doing without regulatory burden, high tax host: we'll hear from sara. go ahead. been --senator, so i've i'm a libertarian by party affiliation and philosophy. i magerd in economics many years ago and i've kind of been in economics all my life. i've also been interested in monitoring our mobtry system and trying to understand how the

fiat monetary system works. i came across a theory also called as functional been -- fi professor named ray who has written probably the most recent writer on this idea. you say you're an accountant you've been in manufacturing, you seem to understand finance a lot better than i do. while this is somewhat disconcerting to my world view, i think it's something you need to understand about how a fiat monetary system actually works. i can't put any holes in this thing and it helps explain things in a much more realistic way than the way we've been dealing with finance. all our finance laws are based around hard money which is something i kind of like but you can't apply hard money to a fiat monetary system. so i would like you to look into this. i would like to hear what you have to say. >> first, it's incredibly complex as you pointed out

there. there aren't truthfully that many people who completely understand. it's all theory, based on what's happened professor in th things do always do change. from my standpoint i wish the federal reserve only had a single mandate, which is preservation of monetary stability. we should really be looking at prices. one of the issues that the federal reserve has been grappling with is deflation, which is probably more harmful than actually inflation. but in dealing with it in printing all this money we certainly enable the fiscal mismanagement and create asset bubbles. we did in the housing market. take a look at right now the stock market. i'm not saying that's a bubble right now. take a look at valuations, probably not that far off recovering from where we are. but the federal reserve has got a tough job. partly due to the fact that he has this dual mandate. i wish they would solely concentrate on just the stability of the monetary value of america.

i think that would simplify their task a whole lot. >> going back to 2 budget deal. caller: that's generally the way washington works. it's always easy to let's spend today and pay for it tomorrow. if you are doing structural reforms -- that's why i want to get into the detail. this is how certain are these reforms? that's a trade-off i'm willing to take a look at and consider because that really is the long-term driver. that is the mandatory programs. we've got to reform them because they're unsustainable. so if you can trade true struct ral reform for the mandatory spending program and part of the political compromise you have to make, that's reality.

we control, conservatives, republicans control the house we don't control the senate and presidency. so if you're going to accomplish something, make a step in the right direction. i think that's what paul would argue now. from his standpoint this is better than nothing. that's an open question. i have to consider. are we better off just sticking to the budget control act caps and forcing that fiscal discipline? i guess i sort of tend to that. but i understand what paul is trying to do here. we have got to start moving the conversation toward the definition of the problem, it really is the mandatory program. we've got to get democrats to acknowledge the problem. >> host: sounds like you might be leaning in the no category. guest: i've got to see what harry reid does to it. let the house work and when it comes to the senate that's finally deciding. host: from twitter.

guest: i would consider it a fee. and if you're going to raise revenue in the federal government, user fees is not a bad way to do it. if you never fly in an airplane, should you have to pay the fees that make flying that airplane possible? i think that's a legitimate argument. the same way with infrastructure spending, the highway trust fund. it one of the functions of government. who should pay for that? if you don't own a car should you really have to pay for the infrastructure? i think you should because you need highways to deliver food to your grocery store. so in general, i would tend more toward user fees assessed to the people utilizing the service and certainly if airline traffic is one of those things, it pays for the t.s.a. security and that's a whole different subject whether that's effective. host: on health care. ahead of today's hearing with h.h.s. secretary kathleen

sebelius, we're learning about new numbers this morning. it says that the federal health insurance marketplace quad rupe 8d in the month of november with the number of enrolees. is it working? >> well, it should have been working from day one. only the federal government could take 3-1/2 years to spend almost $1 billion and not have a functioning website. i've heard experts say the type of site that health care.gov is would have cost between $5-$10 million in the private sector. i believe those figures. what's going to happen -- not only have millions of americans lost their health care, those individuals on the individual market. again that was a massive political deception, massive political fraud saying you can keep your health care plan and doctor, they had to know it.

they were being dishonest or disengaged or totally unaware of what this health care law's effect would be. once we get the website up and running -- and it should be up and running -- what you're going to find is employers, when they have their plans renewed and start seeing these 40% increases, if their employees now have a functioning exchange to purchase insurance from, you'll see employers starting to drop employer-based coverage in the tens of millions. that's where you're seeing these estimates of 80 to 100 million americans losing their employer-sponsored care being forced to purchase inshunes through the exchange. that's what it was always designed. get everybody on the government system. you might qualify for subsidies but it will no longer be tax-advantaged. that's what we really need to do as we start moving toward real free market reforms --

obamacare is going to fail. one thing we have to do at a minimum is equalize the tax treatment for individuals who purchase their insurance and those who get it through their employer. host: according to these new numbers, the administration has not changed their goal of getting 7 million people into the marketplace coverage by the end of open enrollment in march 2014. let me go to d.n.a., democratic -- dan. caller: i have a couple comments i would like to make. one is on the health care law he claims it needs to be repealed and what not. i wish the republicans would have said the same thing about part d, the prescription deal that was a big sellout to the drug companies. i mean, they didn't have to negotiate with the government. they could charge what they want. if you ask me, that was fraud

and a give away right there. host: senator. guest: first, i wasn't here and can't say i disagree with you. right now what we're seeing wisconsin for example, if you're a 27-year-old male, your premiums are going to increase by the 124%. if you're a female 27 years old they're going up about 78%. so patient protection, affordable care act is doing neither. we're seeing millions of people lose their coverage and we do not bend the cost curve down we dramatically increase it. because we've mandated all these coverages which automatically drive the cost of health care up. from my standpoint what we should do is try and do everything we can to preserve freedom and choice in health care. it's a bill i'm working on right now. relatively simple elements. one thing we should immediately do is repeal all these mandated coverages. give people the freedom to purchase whatever health insurance plan they want. if they want to buy obamacare plan, fine, let them.

i don't think many would because those plans are dramatically more expensive than what happened just -- which was available just this year. under the private sector insurance. again, our system wasn't perfect but was a whole lot better than going to be under obamacare. host: let me go to republican caller. caller: thanks for taking my call. i have one general observation and then another more specific point. the general observation is that i think democrats at the ballot box they depend on increasing government dependence. so they don't have incentives for reducing that. second, is more of a specific point about how the phrase tax revenue is used. you were asked earlier, senator, whether republicans would put tax revenue on the table.

that is an ambiguous question that also biases the conversation in favor of democrats. tax revenue is always on the table. we don't have to get republicans to put it on the table. the question is whose policies will bring in more tax revenue? what we need to talk about are tax rates. when you were asked that question about tax revenue what was meant was are you willing to raise tax rates. guest: i understand. caller: but that's a different question than tax revenue. guest: and of course that's what i tried to point out, republicans realize we need more revenue in the federal government because we're not living within our means. but the best way to raise revenue is through economic growth. that's what i was trying to point out. from 2009-2013 we've increased revenue in the federal government by $669 billion without a tax increase, with economic growth. so we need to do everything we can to grow the economy. i think it's relatively simple what we should do, we've got to

reduce the regulatory burden which is the cost to comply with regulations, a figure that's larger than all but eight economies in the world. we also need tax reform. and we need to utilize our resources. if we do it on public lands that would result in royalty revenue to the federal government as well. there's common-sense things we can do to make america an attractive place for businesses that would raise more revenue than raises tax rates which punishes the success which is a disincentive. host: a tweet here. you said at the top this was negotiated between paul ryan and patty murray. and it's going to go right to the house floor and the senate floor without the committees looking at it. guest: the answer is you can't. there's no doubt about it. it's hard to convey how

dysfunctional washington, d.c. is. the power primarily resides in the chairman of committees and their staffs. and for example, fiscal cliff deal, i think we got the final language of that at 1:36 in the morning we had to vote on it at 1 deln 39 in the morning. so, no, i'm not here defending this place. i came here to try to limit the federal government. there's my message. believe what your eyes and ears are telling you about the federal government. it is dysfunctional, it is broken, it's ineffective. with that on the table ask yourself, do you really want the federal government to continue to grow? do you want its influence and control over your life to increase? do you really want it taking oifer your health care decisions? i think that's a monumently bad decision. until we get more americans electing other officials here that have that same viewpoint, the government is going to continue to be broken and have very harmful effects on our economy and on individual american's blives.

>> so the house was likely to take this up this week, the senate could follow suit next week. and we will see how the votes happen then. on some other issues that i want to get your take on. yesterday, the senate voted to approve mel watt to head up the federal housing finance agency and then patricia ann millet will be a federal appeal judge. guest: that was power grab by senator harry reid and i think president obama fully supported to it. although they were opposed to it when they were in the minority. president obama feels probably the only thing he can do is through the regulatory agencies, basically regulate through legislation. he needs the d.c. circuit court that will ratify those regulations. so kind of katy bar the door. i'm highly concerned about the regulatory state as it currently exists much less the

direction we're going to be moving over the next three years. that's what it's about is be able to pass the d.c. court so president obama can jam through these regulations and it's not going to be helpful to the economy by any stretch of the madge nace. host: you also sit on the foreign affairs committee. so the top democrat senator tim johnson of south carolina who heads the banking committee said he will now hold off on introducing a new round of sanctions against iran. a good idea? guest: i don't think so. we should have pass add more stringent set of sanctions. i hear all these things about crippling sanctions. they're really not. iran's economy is about $500 billion. the sanctions themselves had maybe about a 10% effect on that. what we should have done is strengthen the sanctions until iran came to us and really begged, ok, uncle, we give in. we're going to give up our nuclear weapons program. which is what this is all about.

they're not doing that right now. i'm not satisfied by any stretch of the imagination. host: there's also another headline. what do you think? guest: the president of the united states in those type situations, those are pretty big symbolic gestures. and certainly if i would have been president of the united states, i would not have done that. it signals things that i don't believe he should have done. now, as a normal human being sure you shake people's hands. but when you're president of the united states, you have to understand what a gesture means when you bow to dictators, when you shake the hands of dictators when you pat them on the back. that's a problem. and i think the president of the united states needs to be fully aware of what those normal minor gestures mean to regular people but for the president of the united states it actually means something and i don't think that was a good

idea. >> host: senator ron johnson, thank you for weighing in on these issues and talking to our viewers. guest: i enjoyed it. host: coming up next, our series continues with mother jones investigation into the number of children killed by guns since the handy hook shootings one year ago. we'll take that up next after this news update from c-span radio. >> it's 9:17 eastern time. the ashiana airlines captain who crashed a boeing 777 in july is telling investigators in his statement that he was stressed out and very concerned about attempting a visual approach because the runway's automatic warning systems were out of service due to construction. the report was released earlier at the start of a day-long national transportation safety board hearing into that accident. the jet crash-landed after approaching low and slow in an accident that left three people dead and more than 150 people

injured. and more reaction to the budget deal reached by negotiators yesterday. tom coburn speaking earlier on msnbc says the agreement fails to address wasteful spending. that is inflating the federal debt. he went on to say that he can't support the deal because it doesn't go far enough towards deficit reduction and doesn't attack duplication in federal programs. turning to the health care law, h.h.s. secretary kathleen sebelius in a blog post earlier says she is asking for an investigation into the administration's botched rollout of health care.gov. she says she is asking the department's inspector general to look into the contracting process, management, and performance and payment issues that may have contributed to the flawed launch. meanwhile, a report released this hour says nearly 1.2 million people have selected a new health plan. the announcement coming as secretary sebelius heads to capitol hill to testify before

the house energy and commerce committee. or can hear live cover here hear it live on c-span 2. >> this is the oldest building here in plains. if you can imagine in 1976, the hustle and bustle of all the activities here in the campaign, you would have tables and desks and phones and letters going off. and ms. rosen was here helping

run the campaign from this small building. this is where ross lynn carter helped organize the peanut brigade, an offshoot off the high neighbor technique used for his run for governor, basically a way to get the word out. it was a method so effective that it helped him get elected to the presidency. host: in our last hour of the "washington journal," on wednesday we take a look at recent magazine articles as part of our spotlight on magazines series. today we're taking a look at a

new investigation put out by mother jones looking at the number of children killed by guns since newtown one year ago. joining us from san francisco is mark, senior editor. let's begin with what's the number? how many children have been killed by guns since the sandy hook shootings? >> the number is at least 194. we gathered this data from looking at local and national news reports over the last 12 months. that was the number of cases we were able to find. but we also know that understates the problem. many of these cases never appear in the media at all. o it's at least that number, 194. host: how were these children killed? guest: there is a mix of the type of cases. it's roughly split between homicides and accidents.

it's slightly more homicides than accidents. but the accidents in particular are striking because many of these cases are occurring in the children's own homes. and there's some homicides in the homes, too. that's one of the most striking patterns we found in this data set, 127 of these 194 child's deaths had taken place in their own homes. host: and 72 either pulled the trigger themselves or were shot by another child. guest: that's right. so in many of these cases, you have children getting their hands on unsecured firearms and playing with them or pointing them at other kids and accidentally shooting and killing themselves or others. host: what does that tell you? guest: well, i think it's a pretty clear indication of a problem that a lot of gun owners are not storing their

firearms safely. and this is an issue that's discussed quite a bit in the debate over guns and gun regulations. whether or not there should be guidelines in the law requiring gun owners to store their firearms in a safer manner. and i think this is the reason. although, i should add that this is a fairly poorly understood problem. there isn't great data on gun deaths in general and on child gun deaths in particular. and it would seem that if people understood the scope of this problem a little bit better that there might be more of an effort perhaps to regulate what gun owners are required to do in terms of keeping guns stored safely in their homes. host: why isn't there great data on this? how were you able to find the data that you found? guest: we looked at news reports. the question of deficient data

is an interesting one. i think it's been fairly widely reported that research into gun violence is an area where there hasn't been a lot of clear work done, especially in recent years. and part of the reason for that is that the government, the federal government is essentially not allowed to research it. the gun lobby, the national rifle association and others, have pressured congress for decades now to essentially stop researching the gun violence and defund it and as a result of that we don't have great federal studies of this issue. host: what was the -- did you get a response from the national rifle association and her pro gun groups guest: not yet to this particular study. but certainly in general to the gun violence reporting that i've done at mother jones we've heard quite a bit from that side of the equation. and there's a lot of pushback on what we do. but the guns issue is an

extremely emotional and polarizing one and the politician of it tend to be somewhat disconnected from the reality of it. my role as a journalist is to gather information and gather data and report on facts. and that's what we've really tried to do with this project o ill lume nate the problem of violence. we did a year long research into the mass shooting. i think that people on all sides of this issue, gun owners and gun control advocates alike would agree unanimously that we don't want to see two and three-year-old children pulling triggers of guns and killing themselves and killing each other. so the first thing you need to do with a problem in order to stop it is to understand it. and in order to understand it you need better information and better data. that's part of what we try to

do with this project. host: what has the nra said about your investigations? guest: well, i don't know that i want to get into sort of repeating their arguments about what we've done because i don't think that they hold much water, to be honest. but essentially they try to downplay typically downplay the issue of casualties from guns and the danger to children. they've done that repeatedly. you'll hear things thrown around like children are in more danger from choking on their dinner and things like that. but the data that they cite ironically is the federal data that is somewhat lacking on this issue, that in a sense they helped create because of defunding government research. so if you start to dig deeper into the issue of gun violence and look at the degree to which it is harming people in our

country, you can see that it's a serious issue. i've talked to a number of pediatricians for this story and they characterize it as an almost routine problem. they see this day in and day out, injuries and deaths to children from guns. that's not a message that the n.r.a. wants to see out there. it's not good for business. host: we have a tweet. guest: that's a good question. i don't have an answer to it. but i can say from the data set we worked with from this year that the majority of the guns that are used in the accidents appear to be owned by gun owners who have them legally. eople who have consealed carry permits and own long guns and -- for hunting and those types of things. but it's not clear.

we weren't able to gather that level of specific information in terms of legal versus illegal guns in the equation. host: and we have a tweet. guest: well, i think that's a question that's up to policy makers. to some degree it seems like it's an issue of education of gun owners. but the two tend to overlap. for example, there is research that shows that medical doctors talking with their patients about the risks of firearms tends to increase the level of safety that gun owners exercise in their homes. and yet we have an example of the battle over gun regulations going right to that. in florida in 2011 there was a law passed the so-called docks versus glocks law which forbids doctors to talking to patients

about firearms. so you see the political struggles over gun control and the need for better education. host: we're talking with mark follman at mother jones. 194 kids killed since the sandy hook shootings one year ago. an investigation that the magazine did into gun accidents, homicides and suicides that fatally involved children. we'll go to thomas in pennsylvania, independent caller. caller: my question is this. in all these discussions about gun control, i hear no one talking about punishment. a hand gun does not kill anyone. it's the person holding the hand gun. i've been a gun owner for over 50 years. i'm a vet. i use my gun in a responsible way. but no one talks about the punishment. i believe we have 22,000 rules

right now regulating our gun ownership. one of them passed in the 80's was if you own a hand gun in a felony it was a mandatory federal prison term of five years. no one has ever received that. host: let's talk about liability. guest: well it's an important question in this discussion. with this investigation in particular with the child gun deaths there was some pretty stark data that we found which is that in the majority of these cases in the accidents, very few adults were -- had been held criminally libel. of these 72 cases in which children pulled the trigger killing themselves and or others, we were only able to find four in which adults or guardians were held criminally responsible. that's about 6%. so it seems pretty clear that

the law in this situation is not doing much to respond. host: you also found at least 52 deaths involved a child handling a gun left unsecured. guest: that's right. and that goes even more directly to laws that would regulate the negligent storage of firearms. there are only a handful of states that have strong laws covering negligence with respect to children and guns. they're 14 and the district of columbia has these laws. but even so it's not clear that the laws are in use much. we couldn't find more than a smal handful of prosecutions from the year in these cases. host: of the 72 kids that pulled the trigger killing themselves or others, three were by suicide, two by homicide, three unclear. nd 64 accidents. by gun accidents. and then when you take a look at the 52 cases where adults

left guns unsecured, of those 48 were gun accidents, one was a homicide, two were suicides, and one unclear. let's go to john in new jersey. caller: good morning. i just want to -- just a couple of headlines. that would be they said 194 kids were killed. where were their parents? number one. i think we should get some responsibility there. you don't know what your kid is doing in this room? there's guys walking in with black coats, hats, guns and all that. where are are their parents? how many kids are starting to take drugs now in this country? not how many are getting killed by guns but how many are taking drugs? host: and nick tweets in. guest: well, so that sentiment is a fairly common response

i've seen to the investigations we've done on the gun violence. certainly we have multiple types of problems in our society, social issues. but those are different issues. i think it's -- to downplay gun violence in that way is -- it begs the question, well, are we going to consider this a problem or not? i think the intention of those kinds of statements is to say, well, that's less relevant because there are fewer gun deaths than say car accidents. but the fact is we have a lot of gun deaths and injuries in the united states around 30,000 people a year die from guns in this country. and hundreds of children are killed and thousands more are injured and hospitalized. that's what the data that we do have so far tells us. that's the significant problem. and it's a problem that far exceeds any other affluent developed country in the world.

there's no other country that has this level of gun violence. host: how did you define children? what ages are these kids? guest: this study looked at ages 12 and under, kids is the and under. host: so these are not teenagers. guest: if you add teenagers, the numbers go up quite a bit. so we did include teens in terms of kids getting their hands on guns and pulling the trigger. we included in that set, in that study kids ages 13-17. so we looked at minors in terms of kids getting their hands on guns but the deaths are all kids 12 and under. and the average age of the victims is 6, the same age of the kids who died in sandy hook and newtown . host: do you know the race of the kids? guest: that is something we did not look at categorically. as i say in the story on mother jones, one of the problems with our study or one of the limitations of it is that in many cases the specific details

are unclear and that's because the media barely registers a lot of these cases. they're just a blip on the local news media raid dar, a couple paragraphs and that's it. sometimes the details aren't there. anecdotally i can tell you that it's mixed. we see these cases in inner cities in tiny rural towns. it's a broad swath of children and it's all over the country. these cases happened in 43 states. host: and we have a tweet. guest: there are some cases from those places, from chicago and other cities. but i think it's important to point out you do hear that kind of argument, too, this is only a problem we see in our inner cities in chicago and detroit and washington, d.c. that's not true. what the data shows us is that there are many cases like this happening in small towns in states all over the country. and the problem is actually the

worst or was the worst this year in the south. there were 17 of these cases in florida, there were 19 in texas. a number of them in small towns. so it's not just the cities where we see this issue. host: we have a tweet. guest: as i was saying earlier, that's a common argument we hear when people look at our investigations. but, look, how many kids dying from guns a year is enough to be relevant? i think that's really the question we would have to ask here. we know that there are at least 200 a year dying, there are thousands more being injured and hospitalized. i would -- i guess i would challenge those folks who are saying that to talk directly to the parents and families and friends and colleagues of all these people and ask them if it's enough people to be

relevant. host: do you know the economic background of the kids? guest: again, i would say that anecdotally looking at these cases it's mixed. you do tend to see more cases of working class people, poorer people. as i said earlier, i think there is some degree an issue of education in here. parents not necessarily -- presumably not understanding the level of danger they're exposing their young children to by having an unsecured gun in the house, leaving a hand gun lying out on a table or in a drawer, loaded, under a mattress. we see a lot of cases like that where kids are just going into a room where a gun is laying around and getting ahold of it. host: this number that you have, the 194, since the sandy hook shootings, we're coming up on the anniversary of the newtown shootings. were any of them -- have there been another mass shooting involving children? guest: i don't believe there's

been one with children of this age. there have been several mass shootings since sandy hook in which people have been injured and killed. there have been shooting ram packages in schools. now, we define mass shooting in our investigation with a certain set of parameters. you hear that term used rather loosely in the media but we used f.b.i. guidelines and some other criteria to define a mass shooting as four or more people killed in a public place where the motive seemingly is indiscriminate mass murder. those types of cases we haven't seen another one since sandy hook with children. but there have been shooting ram pags and including in schools where kids have been shot. the most recent example is the case in neved where you had a -- and this is in our data set because the shooter was a 12-year-old. took a gun to a middle school, shot several people, killed a

teacher, wounded students, and then committed suicide. host: the number 194, you put names and faces to those numbers. if you go on line to mother jones.com, they have an interactive photo gallery of the 194 victims. you can see their names, the incident, the age, how it happened, et cetera, if you go to mother jones.com. american hero tweets in. how do these numbers compare to other countries? guest: well, that's a question i can't answer. i think clearly those are different situations than the one we're talking about here. those are essentially war zones. and no doubt a lot of children are injured and killed in war zones. it's a different kind of a problem. host: can you compare it to other countries? what the data set that you looked at. guest: as i said before, there

is research that shows that the u.s. in terms of the gun death rate for children is far higher here than any other affluent western society. there was a study by the children's defense fund recently that showed that the gun death rate here for children and teens is four times higher than that in canada, which is the second closest country and many other countries are far lower than that. germany, great britain, the u.s. is 65 times the rate of child gun deaths. host: we'll go to amy in michigan. caller: i was just thinking that guns should be manufactured such that you have to log in your social security number before anything happens. i mean, or a pin number after your social security number.

and then otherwise, if you get that, the gun locks, and it doesn't shoot. thank you. host: mark. guest: well, i think that's an issue that a lot of people have thought about as a way to try to alleviate the gun violence problem, that the idea that we should have stronger controls on how people get weapons and how they use them. it's certainly a relevant question. there's some i think technological challenges with locking up guns with trigger locks with personal identification on guns but it's something that the industry itself has looked into and then stopped. the gun lobby again, the n.r.a. and others when those types of measures are on the table they tend to have a kind of scorched earth approach to stopping them.

they see any type of regulation like that as a major threat or at least that's how they describe it to constitutional right to own firearms. so those types of measures have not gotten much traction if at all in most levels of government. host: we'll go to mark next. caller: good morning. i first want to thank you for clearing up the issue of the ages of those who were in your study. here in the baltimore area we know that many times you can have a 15, 16, or 17-year-old who can be a very tough and street-hardened gang criminal. so to call those children or kids is a stretch. but anyway, let me get on to the point of pop culture. i think what we need to do as a nation is address the popular culture of violence and the popular culture of settleling

scores by using firearms. when i was growing up, if someone made you angry, you would get into a fist fight with them. now? no, you take a gun and you shoot that person. host: mark. guest: well, it's certainly an important and an interesting question that's come una lot in the debate about gun violence. how and whether pop culture influences the issue. do video games cause gun violence? et cetera. that's a question that's been asked in many ways. we did an extensive story. again there comes down to research. there's no defensetive research one way or another showing whether violent video games are actually causing gun violence. but it's an interesting question and i think it's an important one to ask. host: "wall street journal" headline this morning on video game impact bills have been stalled.

barbara in west virginia, independent caller. caller: thank you. i would like to ask you about the law that i heard this morning that what you thought about it, about new jersey passed a law to make it mandatory about registering bb guns. and also, i would like to say that it just seems like it keeps getting greater and greater, that the obama administration wants to get rid of a lot of our guns and take our freedoms and rights away from us. it's in our constitution. another thing that was brought up on the tv this morning about him shaking hands with a lot of

the evil like cuban leaders, stuff like that. and i just feel that evil shakes hands with evil. i would like to hear your comment. guest: well, i'll comment on the guns issue. the lawyer pointing to new jersey, i'm not familiar with having a chance to look at that yet. but as far as the idea that the obama administration is trying to take away everyone's guns, there's just really no truth to that. the discussion of guns and gun regulation earlier this year in the wake of the sandy hook massacre was about having a different system for background checks. and it's a policy that the population of the country overwhelmingly supports. polls show that nearly 90% of people at least at that time were in support of having more stringent background checks for gun buyers. and that's what the debate was about. it wasn't about getting rid of guns or taking away people's guns. there are roughly 300 million

guns in this country and they're not going to be taken away by anyone any time soon. that's just not reality. host: "new york times" report this is morning. denise, newark, ohio. caller: i just think that no matter what is done or what is said, there can be discussions until people are blue in the face. you cannot legitimate morality from mentality. now, the morality issue goes to, as long as somebody can make a buck off of a violent video game or a violent movie, they're going to. and then you've got the mentality issue of it that people that might be mentally unstable feed on this sort of thing. and while it may not have a direct cause it still, it heightens their awareness and i

just don't think you're ever going to be able to legitimate either one. -- legitimate either one. host: we -- legislate either one. host: the issue of violent culture in the way that it mixes with people who are mentally unstable is interesting. we did see in our study there are some strong patterns of the people who are carrying out these types of crimes, many of them have mental health issues and there are a number of cases where they are consuming violent media or making reference to it. however, it's important to note that there's a very complex set of factors playing into the question of motive. and what enables a person to go out and commit a mass shooting and why they do it is a very complicated question. i think we have to be careful about attributing cause to violent media, for example. host: washington times reports this morning

. we'll go to illinois. independent caller. caller: the lady in hoy. i would like to give you one retired police officer's perspective. we encourage people, especially the young people, to be afraid and think they can go out in the street and shoot people if they carry a gun they can be available for any threat. most people have never even been in a fist fight and i taught self-defense my whole career. and it's unfortunate that we have this idea that pulling the gun on somebody is just something you can do naturally. i have taken many officer safety courses and it doesn't work like that. people need to be aware that

carrying a gun, you'd better be prepared physically and emotionally or you're going to get yourself hurt. i thought you should know that when you're talking to people about this subject. host: you're a former police officer? caller: yes, i am. host: ok. guest: well, a related issue there i think is the degree to which it's become more and more permissible in the united states to carry guns in public. there have been scores of laws passed in the last several years. we've documented this also at mother jones. allowing more and more people to get consealed carry permits and to carry guns and more and more places publicly, in restaurants and bars, on school campuses. so i think that's worth considering in that light, too, that you have a lot more people in the last handful of years walking around with guns. with permits. host: does mental health play a

role in these numbers that we're seeing from your investigation and the number of children that are killed? guest: mental health specifically isn't a data pont hat we have with this study. there were anecdotally there were some cases where we saw parents who seemingly were quite disturbed whether or not they had mental health is an open question. but in the cases that were homicides, one would think that that's a strong possibility. there were 60 cases in which parents shot their own children to death and 50 of them were homicides. in some of the cases that we're talking about domestic disputes that turned violent, et cetera, but i can't comment directly to whether or not or to what degree mental health played a le in these 194 children's deaths. host: in washington times this morning.

so one year after the sandy hook shooting, the white house announcing a boost of $100 for the mentally ill. let's go to debbie in florida. caller: i was just wondering why can't we make the government more responsible for creating a gun that has a single finger print access that can be registered to the police department? guest: well again, that question goes to the issue of regulation. stricter regulations in terms of who can own guns and how. it's technologically possible to do something like that. politically it seems almost

impossible in terms of what we've seen in the past the debate over to what degree the government should be involved in controlling who can get a gun and who can't. host: we have a tweet. guest: well, the n.r.a. does have an awareness program for children. they have had for many years. where they emphasize firearm safety and responsibility for children. however, when it comes to the wider discussion of requiring gun owners to lock firearms up when they're not in uses to keep them out of the hands of children to store them responsibility, the n.r.a. isn't having any of that. they see that as an encroachment on gun rights. that's an interesting paradox that they promote responsible use of guns by kids and

teaching kids how to use guns in a way that's safe. on the other hand, they fight vigorously against the data-driven policy ideas that would protect kids more, including a lot of these kids that have died in their own homes when they've gotten their hands on guns that are just lying around. host: kentucky, republican caller. you're on the air. caller: the crimes against our children in america have been great such as the one we saw in indiana where the child was brutalized by his parents and buried under a slab of concrete. do you believe there might be less crimes with guns in the united states if we had more laws to protect our children and the guns that are being used are probably being packed by their parents. and the treatment they are receiving in their home might ave something to do with it.

guest: it sounds like the question is whether or not more laws would help stop this issue. i'm not sure that i have the answer to that. i'm not a policy maker. but i think we do see that this is a significant problem. this is something that happens essentially day-to-day. several times a week on average. and so it's the type of issue where if we saw people dying from car accidents on a regular basis like we did or a lot of people getting sick from second-hand smoke from cigarettes, the policy makers and the government does have options to change regulation to try to tamp down on the problem based on research. host: wyoming, richard. caller: good morning. i've been out shoveling snow so maybe these have already been covered. but you mentioned the program. are you in favor of firearm safety training for children in

school? guest: well, again, i'm not a policy maker. my job isn't to make policy rememberedations. as a journalist, my job is to gather information and data on issues that we think are important to study. and so looking at the danger to children from firearms is what was at the center of this project. as for what should be done in schools to protect children more, i mean, that's an issue that certainly has been on the table prominently since sandy hook a year ago and there's been an intense debate about whether or not there should be more firearms around schools to help protect kids. the data doesn't support that's a good idea. when you have more firearms around the risk to children goes up. host: mother jones complete add new investigation looking at the number of children killed by guns. since the sandy hook shootings

a year ago. 194 is the number. that's our spotlight on magazine for you today. mother jones.com if you want to read the article. die an in oregon. caller: good morning. thank you mother jones. i am a contributor. and i get a lot of information that i would normally not get from your magazine. i'm calling about the recklessness that is not being addressed. i hear all these people calling in and saying it's the parents and everything. i believe one of the children that was shot is probably in your study and she was with her mother in an apartment building on the second story, and somebody with a gun used it as a crutch and it shot through, it went off and shot through the building and killed the little 3 or 4-year-old girl. just a darling little girl. it just made me want to cry.

that is because it is so easy to carry a gun around in this -- and nobody's safe. and people just don't seem to want to address that. can you comment? thanks. guest: well, i think that speaks to the basic issue of safety and public safety with firearms. we have a lot of firearms in this country. the more firearms you have around the more likely it is that you'll have injuries and deaths. that's just a basic fact. where the issue gets more complex is that we have a strong gun culture in the united states as well. a lot of people who are responsible gun owners, who exercise their right to own guns and finding the right balance between public safety and people's right to own guns is a challenging problem. host: we'll go to craig next, iowa. republican caller. caller: when all is said and done, americans of all ages

will still be defenseless sitting ducks because that five-second window is not being addressed where the gun perpetrator points his gun and starts to pull the prigger. we need to e-- trigger. we need to equip so many people with a technology that will totally incapacitate the gun predator and it doesn't have to be a gun. host: mark. guest: i'm not quite sure what the question is there but i think the notion -- if i understand correctly, the notion that we need more guns to stop gun violence is -- well, it's -- let's just say that's an interesting way to look at it. the data show that is when you have more firearms around, the danger to people in the vicinity o to the firearms goes up. host: do we know what types of guns were used in these accidents, homicides, suicides? guest: to a degree we do. there are a number of cases

where we don't have that information because either law enforcement authorities didn't share it or the news reports didn't cover it. but there were i believe it was 76 cases where hand guns were involved. that was a larger number than long guns. i think there were roughly 30 plus long guns used in these accidents and homicides. so again we see the biggest problem with firearm accidents and deaths in the united states is with hand guns. that's also true with mass shootings. our investigation at mother jones into that showed very strongly that hand guns were semi-automatic hand guns with high capacity magazines were the weapon of choice for mass shooters. there are a lot of hand guns in the united states. it's roughly half of the 300 million, i think 45% or so. and again, we only have approximations of those types of statistics because firearms are not tracked closely in this

country. it's essentially been forbidden by law. so we don't know exactly how many guns and who has them but we know that there are tens of millions of hand guns out there and they are the source of the problem both in terms of accidental deaths for children and mass shootings. they're the primary weapon. host: mark follma in, the senior editor at mother jones. a special report on the rise of mass shootings. you can find the reporting on mother jones.com. thank you sir for your time. guest: glad to be with you. host: the house is now in for their legislative session. live coverage here on c-span. t washington, d.c., december 11, 2013. i hereby appoint the honorable john j. duncan jr. to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives.